Solving Literal Equations; how anyone can learn

Solving Literal Equations

Welcome to literal equations. The one section that stops most students in their tracks just when they feel they have the ball rolling on solving equations. This one topic throws them off.

Why?

It’s different! It’s not like the other problems we have had to solve before. If you still have some rust on you solving equations, check out my previous post on Solving Linear Equations Not only are we solving for one variable, but there are many more variables, sometimes not any numbers in our equation. So it is important to have a set amount of steps to follow

Identify your variable you are solving, If there is more than one of the variable look to use factoring.

Simplify your each quantity by applying distributive property or combining like terms if needed.

Apply inverse operations by following the reverse order of operations till your variable is isolated.

Check your answer

While these steps are helpful it is important to break down when solving literal equations into three different sections. I like to focus first on solving for y in two-variable linear equations, commonly know as writing an equation from standard form to slope-intercept form. Which is very important when you start graphing linear equations.

Solving for y, given a linear equation in standard form

Hopefully you were pretty familiar with those equations. Now we will get started with solving literal equations with formulas that contain two or more variables. I broke these types of literal equations into two different videos. The first video will focus on two step literal equations where the second video will contain more steps to solve for your given variable.

Solving for your variable, given a formula

Now with more steps, including factoring!

Solving for your variable, using factoring and distributive property

And there you have it solving literal equations broken down to three videos. I am sure you may still have a problem that is not like the ones I chose to solve for. So if you are still stuck or what I explained didn’t make any sense. Just drop me a message below and I will be happy to help you out.

If you got it, but need more practice. I also have a premium course available on Udemy which has many more examples and resources that will make you a literal equation Master. The link is below